Cycling World Championships

A Conversation With Rolf Aldag About the World Championship Road Race

The HTC-Highroad manager will have many of his top sprinters in the big race.

james startt

(Photo by Rolf Aldag, center, at the 2011 Touf of California. (Wil Matthews))

Paris, France (Bicycling.com): Among the many things the HTC-Highroad team will be remembered for after they fold at the end of this season will be that they built the best sprinting team in the history of the sport.

All these riders will toe the start line this Sunday for the world championship road race in Copenhagen. And considering that the flat circuit is tailor made for sprinters, one of them could win.

Rolf Aldag, HTC-Highroad’s team manager, spoke this week with Bicycling.com about the race for the rainbow jersey and the favorites’ chances.

Bicycling: This year’s world championship is considered to be a real sprinter’s race. And you’ve coached many of this year’s favorites. What’s your take?

Rolf Aldag: Well, I do agree that from the description it’s a good race for sprinters, but at worlds there can always be surprises. It’s going to be fast, so if ever a big breakaway gets away with more than two minutes, it is going to be hard to bring them back. But yes, on paper, the course favors sprinters. Not only is it flat and fast but the countries with the big sprinters also have good teams around them to control the race. Mark Cavendish will be able to count on guys like David Millar or Bradley Wiggins; that’s a big help. Those are good guys to chase down breakaways. The Australian team is going to be good for Matt Goss, and the German team is behind Greipel, and even the Spanish team, I think, will be there for Oscar Freire since he’s already won the race three times. Those teams should really help the chances of the sprinters.

Bicycling: The last world championship course suited to sprinters was back in 2002, in Zolder, Belgium, a race dominated by sprint star Mario Cipollini. But the race nearly collapsed with a big crash in the final kilometers. Such fast racing promises to be plenty nervous. Do you think crashes could again play a role?

Aldag: Ah, that can always happen. I was there in Zolder and it was so obvious that there was going to be a crash right there where the road got narrow. And everybody was still in the race really because it was one of the easiest races ever. But Copenhagen is slightly more difficult, yes, and it is going to be nervous.

In addition, there are even more people who think that they can actually win. So it’s going to be nervous because a lot of guys will be willing to take risks. I mean, no sprinter knows when he will have another chance to be the world championship.

Bicycling: What do you think of the final kilometer?

Aldag: It’s tough with a slight uphill. That is the tricky part of the course really because there is a long stretch and it will take long time to get to the finish line. That could favor a lot of different guys. Such a finish could really be good for Edvald Boasson-Hagen, for example, or Thor Hushovd. It will really favor strong sprinters. But Cavendish can win those uphill sprints too and, on paper, so can Matt Goss or Andrei Greipel. That makes the list of contenders with realistic chances that much bigger. If it were a dead-flat road, Cav would be hard to beat, but the uphill sprint will give others more of a chance.

Bicycling: How is Cavendish going? He dropped out the Tour of Spain, a great race to prepare for worlds, after Stage 2?

Aldag: Dropping out of the Vuelta after only a few days was never part of the plan. The plan was for him was to race into top condition during the Vuelta, but he just didn’t feel good. He said that he felt bad and wasn’t up to speed.

He’s approaching this year’s worlds differently. Last year, remember, he was probably too good too early. After the Vuelta he had to bridge a two-week gap until worlds, and by the time the race came he was not good. This year he’s been trying to build up slowly, but he just wasn’t ready at the start of the Vuelta. It was too much too soon. However, he’s motivated. After he dropped out of the Vuelta I talked to him. I asked him if he was really motivated and if he really wanted to do the Tour of Britain because they had only six-man teams and I would find it really hard to take somebody like Mark Renshaw or Bernard Eisel out of the race if Mark wasn’t motivated. It wasn’t their fault that he dropped out of the Vuelta. But he really worked hard and got his stuff together, and he showed that he had the motivation by winning a stage in Britain. So clearly he’s still thinking of worlds.